


Feels Like Home (Part Two)

by Sougiya_Hara



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Gets You in the Feels, I hope, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Romance, No Smut, Ratings: PG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sougiya_Hara/pseuds/Sougiya_Hara
Summary: In the days after the battle with Zorc, Kaiba and Seth work a few things out. Things that have been waiting five thousand years to be fixed.Set in the Yu-Gi-Oh Resurrection universe.





	Feels Like Home (Part Two)

The tower is silent. 

Unnervingly so, some would think. During the day, Kaiba Corp is alive with motion and sound; employees talking, machines humming, announcements and pages over the intercom system. At night, when business is done, a hush falls over everything.

Seth, however, doesn't find it all that silent. True, the soundproofing is excellent; you have to stand directly beside a door or window to hear traffic, and only on the lower floors. But this glass and steel spire is full of sounds he doesn't know and can't overlook. 

He supposes he'll get used to it. The whole damn millenium is as noisy as the marketplace at mid-morning. How do people think with all that going on?

He'll persevere. He doesn't want to be an inconvenience. He was always impatient with the slow-witted, the ones with perfectly good minds who failed to exercise them. He'll be damned if his younger self has cause to think of him that way.

Mind you, Seto hasn't given any indication he thinks that, and Seth isn't prying. It's guesswork based on self-familiarity. 

He could look. He could know. 

He doesn't because he's being careful.

Seto pulled him out of the Mind Prison and out of the Rod as well. When he did, he took the first step towards uniting them. Seth's almost certain Seto didn't realize that. All the younger self was thinking at the moment was... 

Well. What WAS Seto thinking?

(I choose not to leave you behind!)

Seth's good at reading Seto's motives. They are two fragments of the same soul. it would be absurd to think he couldn't understand the way the other young man thought. 

But five thousand years lie between them, and how many lifetimes?

This is the Great Mystery he was taught as an acolyte, the true nature of the soul. For every choice, a new might be-- they call it 'probability' and 'parallel universe' now. Feh. Grand-sounding words for the simplicity of Ma'at. The cosmos is balance, the Game of Order and Chaos. Souls splinter across the infinite without being broken, each splinter complete in itself yet still part of the greater soul. Dreaming a thousand lives at once, moving ever towards the final understanding that will awaken a new cycle of creation and destruction. Some unknowable time away, the Gods, like the good parents they are, will place infinity into the keeping of their children. They will pass away, and the children will take their place. So it is written, so it shall be done.

While he remained the same, resting undisturbed in the Millenium Rod, Seto moved through those lives. Exactly how different did that make them?

Seth's fairly sure that should a reunion take place it won't erase either of them. Kage and Bakura are good evidence for that. He doesn't count Atem and Yugi. The Prince is not the Pharaoh's reincarnation; he is something perhaps more wonderful and sacred than that. Ma'at crafted him to be the balance for Atem, because there could be no reincarnation for Atem. The entirety of the young Pharoah's soul was locked into the Millenium Puzzle.

And yet a small worry, a doubt, gnaws at the High Priest like a mouse in the cellar. Which of them would be left, if one of them faded: Seto Kaiba, remembering being Seto, son of Aknadin-- but only as a story he heard in a dream? Or Seth, struggling to fit into a world he wasn't born to?

Neither extreme pleases him.

He doesn't know all the details, but the scars are too easy to see. It's too bad that za iny xoto sab mender dumo--

No, wait. He's being unfair to the jackal AND the worms in its gut, to think either one would have had a hand (paw?) in siring Gozaburo Kaiba.

But anyway, it's still unfair that he doesn't have access to a bit of the man, a bone or two would do. He's a High Priest, after all, he knows ways of invoking spirits. Delivering a little bit of private justice for the crimes wrought on Seto and Mokuba would please Seth very much. Being devoured by Amnit is too good for Gozaburo. 

Bast/Sekhmet would more than likely back him up on that, too.

With an impatient grunt Seth dismisses that entire train of thought and looks around. His midnight stalk through KaibaCorp has brought him to the penthouse, near the bedrooms. The doors don't react-- of course not, they can't perceive him-- so he passes through the nearest one to look in on its occupant. 

Mokuba is sound asleep on his stomach, a book just at his fingertips. Seth chuckles softly. How familiar. He and Atem did the same thing as boys. They'd take a handful of scrolls, smuggle them into their bedrooms to be discovered in the morning amidst a scatter of papyrus. Carefully he moves the tome, marking the pages as he closes it. Then he sits and watches the boy a moment. 

Setting aside any feelings creeping across from Seto, Seth has grown very fond of Mokuba. He's easy to like. If only... 

Would there have been such a boy, if Aknadin (may his soul writhe in torment in Ammit's belly for eternity) hadn't turned to the dark? Short legs racing to keep up with Seth's as they went to their studies together? Useless to ponder. That path wasn't his. But he has this much now. 

Mokuba welcomes him. It's Seto he's still unsure of.

This line of thought is really beginning to bother him. It will not lie still, no matter how hard he pins it to the floor. Perhaps his own subconscious is trying to tell him that it is time to settle the matter once and for all. Gently he strokes Mokuba's hair. /Let's hope I see you in the morning,/ he whispers. /Sleep well./

Standing, the High Priest continues to the next room-- unoccupied, of course. Probably in his office. Seth heads that way and isn't disappointed in his augury. /You should sleep,/ he says by way of announcing his arrival. 

"Sleep is for turtles." Kaiba doesn't even turn around. 

/Probably why they live so long./

"So you're an expert on herpetology now? Great. The next time I have a question about a snake, I know who to come to."

/Is what you're doing so important you're willing to double your workload tomorrow for it? Fatigue compounds error./

Kaiba laughs curtly. "What are you going to do about it, hijack me?" He pauses, saves his work, turns to finally look at Seth. "That reminds me..."

Seth arches a brow. 

"Why haven't you?" 

/Why haven't I what?/ 

"When Zorc had us locked away you told me you could 'gain control' -- that you had as much a right to the body as I did. So why haven't you exercised that right?"

/I believe I also said I had moral objections to that./

"Then why not do what the Pharaoh and Yugi do? According to you, they synchronize their spirits on a regular basis."

Seth doesn't answer. Not right away. He's busy looking into eyes so like his own, trying to understand the urgency he senses behind this line of questioning. Finally he says /Because... Even if I have an equal right, this is your body, your life. I will not take what you are not willing to give. Too many people have done that already. And I will admit.../ For one of the few times in his experience Seth finds himself hesitant. He has to force himself to continue. /I am not certain that if I do possess your body, that it will not result in the two halves of our soul fusing together permanently. Not simply joining, do you understand? Yugi and Atem, Kage and Bakura, each maintain their separate identity, even when they are coexisting and acting as one. But it isn't enough empirical proof to say that all such situations would be the same./

"So what you're saying is you're afraid that if our spirits combine it'll wind up destroying one or the other of us as an individual? Why should that concern you? You've already said that you and I are the same person. What would the loss be?"

/It's not only Atem that I would move the world for, not anymore. There is someone else that I would do that for now. Someone I do not wish to lose./

It takes Kaiba a moment. Then there's a quick intake of breath, his eyes widen. "You..."

Seth kneels, left side forward. One always offers one's heart-side in respect. /We are the same soul, and in many ways we are the same person. But you are your own, Seto Kaiba. I would not carry you-- you are too strong for that. But when your strength fails, mine would be there to stand for you. To be your sword and shield. That is the duty of a man to his family./

Kaiba just stares at him, as if Seth were speaking some language that was neither English, Japanese, nor Khemet-ih. Slowly he stands. "Get up."

When Seth does so, Kaiba steps forward. They're almost nose-to-nose. "Will you stay?" he says, voice breaking. "Do you promise? Will you be there?"

Seth answers by diving into those dark storm waters, the tempest of his other spirit. He lets himself be pulled down, feels Seto's momentary dismay bordering on panic, bordering on rejection, something that is and isn't him is here inside--

A single star winks into being. Brightens. In the hidden depths of their heart, two boys look at one another in its light before they run into each other's arms, one beginning to cry. 

/Where have you been? I've missed you./

/I'm here. I'll never leave again./

Seth opens his eyes, raises his hands. Their hands. He sighs, wincing at the crick in his neck, the band of tension across his forehead. "Make that, you need a hot bath and then sleep," he says aloud. 

Somewhere in the back of his thoughts he hears a chuckle. /I'll leave that to you./ A pause. /Seth?/

"Yes?"

/Okaerinasai, aniki./

Welcome home, big brother.


End file.
